Sunday, January 15, 2006

Religious Police Bans a Play

One of the many problems regarding the religious police in Saudi Arabia is that they don't know when they cross the line. I really suspect they know there is a line in the first place. They think that they can do whatsoever they want, just because they are doing it under the name of religion. What they should know is that using religion to achieve goals on their private agenda has nothing to do with religion. Actually, it is against religion.

Recently, the religious police have banned a play (Arabic) in Safwa, east of Saudi Arabia, because it has included a male actor who plays a role of a woman. As far as I know, female actors are not allowed to take part in such plays, but the law says nothing about a male actor playing the role of a woman. Moreover, this play was already permitted by the ministry of culture of information, which is the government body responsible for regulating such activities. So, how could the religious police interfere in this matter?

The religious police have justified their action saying there is a fatwa issued by the governmental Permanent Committee for Scientific Research and Fatwa, a committee that prominent Saudi scholar Abdul-Mohsen Al-Obeikan once described as the "sleeping committee," that prohibits acting scenes which include men imitating women. Such fatwa is just another example of many fatwa's that make no sense, and unfortunately, there are many people out there ready to defend them.

These fatwa's, and the scholars behind them, are just making life here worse for everybody by getting their nose in every freaking side of our already messed up lives. I also got the feeling that this case, like many other previous cases where the religious police were involved, has a sectarian aspect, but I won't comment on it, because I don't want to get accused with sectarianism; an accusation, along with antinationalism and Americanism, that I frequently get since I started this blog less than two years ago.